Former US Ambassador to India and New York Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, worked in the administration of four successive US Presidents from both parties: John F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. The Democrat belonged to an era of classical statesmanship and honourable conduct that recognised bipartisanship as a patriotic necessity in presidential Americanness.
In 1993, he wrote Defining Deviancy Down, a thought-provoking piece that warned against losing that invested Americanness that valourised the politics and instincts of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and countless others who put the nation before partisanship—and certainly, themselves.
He believed that the rot at the top tier of governance structures could rapidly make this invested normalcy of Americanness a lot more uncivilised, toxic, and hateful.